Effect of Ground Motion Characteristics on the Seismic Performance of Retaining Walls With Tire Waste Cushion

Abstract eng:
Due to the propagating ground motions, earthquakes are one of the most destructive natural disasters. Earthquakes may be devastating especially to the seismic stability of geotechnical engineering structures such as retaining walls. There are three major ground motion characteristics that affect the degree of damage of a structure subjected to seismic loading, which are amplitude, frequency content and duration of motion. The dynamic response of rigid walls subjected to earthquake motions is quite complex. The dynamic wall pressures acting on the rigid walls are highly dependent on the mode and degree of the wall movement and permanent displacements are highly affected by the natural frequency of the rigid wall-backfill system. The use of compressible cushion-like vertical layers behind retaining walls and rigid walls takes increased attention of researches nowadays as these kind of materials are reported to be reducing the static earth pressures and attenuating the earthquake-induced dynamic earth pressures concurrently. However, the proof of concept through numerical simulations is limited in the literature. In this study, a new proposed earthquake mitigation technique involves the use of tire waste-sand mixture as a cushion between the backfill soil and the retaining wall structure is studied under different dynamic motions with different characteristics. Tire wastes (TW) are preferred in many different engineering applications due to their convenient engineering properties such as thermal insulation, permeability, compressibility, stiffness and also high damping. Tire wastes are used in geotechnical applications as lightweight fill, embankment fill, retaining wall backfill, subgrade insulation for roads, and vibration damping layers. Recently, a new seismic buffer proposed to use tire wastes as energy absorption material due to its enhanced damping and stiffness properties compared to sand. The protective cushion layer should provide flexibility, and thereby stability to the structures during earthquakes by absorbing the seismic energy. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of ground motion parameters on the seismic performance of the proposed retaining wall design with cushion. Thus, a cantilever type of retaining wall with a TW cushion is modelled by a finite element program called PLAXIS and subjected to dynamic motions with different characteristics such as amplitude and duration. Due to the lightweight of the material and high energy absorption properties, the cantilever type retaining wall performed better both under static and dynamic loads, and this study is concentrated on the effect of ground motion parameters on seismic performance of the retaining wall with tire waste cushion.

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